UNITED STATES

China said on Wednesday it wanted the United States to offer sharper carbon cuts by 2020, and President Barack Obama's top aides promised robust engagement with world leaders at Copenhagen climate talks.

Stocks dipped on Wednesday as an unexpected rise in wholesale inventories was offset by an outlook from Texas Instruments Inc that suggested the recovery in technology spending would be sluggish.

AT&T Inc expects to pass 2 million customers for its U-Verse video service today, Ralph de la Vega, the company's head of its wireless business and consumer markets, said on Wednesday.

Children and young people who survive cancer have a significantly higher risk of developing heart disease as young adults because of the cancer treatment they received, researchers said Wednesday.

U.S. advisers felt MRI imaging drugs from GE Healthcare and Covidien appear to carry a higher risk of a serious skin disease in some patients than similar products, a Food and Drug Administration official said on Tuesday.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday moved to extend the government's $700 billion bailout fund into October 2010 and pledged to deploy no more than $550 billion of it.

Myanmar's detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been insincere and dishonest in her offer to meet the country's military ruler and push for the lifting of Western sanctions, state media said on Wednesday.

Secretary of Defence Robert Gates visited U.S. commanders in Afghanistan on Wednesday, promising that President Barack Obama's surge of extra forces would give them what they need for success against the Taliban.

Apple's iTunes on Tuesday released Rewind 2009, its lists of the year's best and best-selling media. Black Eyed Peas' Boom Boom Pow was the best-selling song at the country's leading music retailer. Kings of Leon's Only by the Night was the best-selling album and also was named best album of the year.

About 20 percent of kidney dialysis patients who undergo a procedure to open a blocked artery are given the wrong blood clot medicine, increasing the chances of significant bleeding, researchers said Tuesday.

For more than 20 years, Colin Firth has been the movie industry's go-to, buttoned-up English man.

Refinancing Drives Mortgage Activity; Modest Expansion for Economy; Chrysler Will Take Short Term Losses

Prison Break actor Lane Garrison, out of jail after serving time for vehicular manslaughter, is taking on a project about troubled teens and the redemptive power of football.

The recovery of many U.S. low income areas remains stymied as lenders decide completing some foreclosures simply isn't worth the cost, casting many properties into legal limbo, Federal Reserve Governor Elizabeth Duke said on Wednesday.

Fewer U.S. home sellers are cutting asking prices as competing inventory shrinks and an extended buyer tax incentive lessens the urgency to sell, real estate website Trulia.com said on Wednesday.

Low interest rates will prevail through most of next year as the U.S. economy expands modestly and the unemployment rate remains stuck in double digits, the UCLA Anderson Forecast group said on Wednesday.

U.S. home prices stabilized in 2009 after losing trillions of dollars in value during the previous year, real estate website Zillow.com said on Wednesday.

The Treasury must seek Congressional approval if it wants to funnel some of its $700 billion bailout fund to jobs programs that do not involve financial services firms as intermediaries, a key overseer said on Wednesday.

The Canadian dollar climbed against the U.S. currency on Wednesday, boosted by firmer commodity prices and as investor risk appetite returned after recent losses.

The Obama administration plans to announce on Wednesday that it intends to extend the life of the $700 billion financial bailout fund until next October, administration officials said on Tuesday.

As soothsayers and strategists gaze into 2010, one statistic on the retiring baby-boom generation makes anxious reading for stock market bulls.